Tom Feelings (May 19, 1933 – August 25, 2003)[1] was a cartoonist, children's book illustrator, author, teacher, and activist. Through his works, he framed the African-American experience. His most famous book is The Middle Passage: White Ships/Black Cargo.

Feelings was a prolific and accoladed illustrator, the recipient of numerous awards for his art in children's picture books; he was the first African-American artist to win the Caldecott Honor Award, and was the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lived in New York City, Ghana, and Guyana.[2][3]

Feelings was born on May 19, 1933 in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York.[4] He attended the George Westinghouse Vocational High School, where he majored in art, and later the Cartoonists' and Illustrators' School, which he attended for two years on a scholarship. During this freelance period, he primarily depicted African-American residents of his community.[3]

His earliest known (signed) comic book work may be the story "Scandal" in Key Publication's third issue of Radiant Love (February 1953).

A skilled cartoonist, Feelings created the groundbreaking comic strip Tommy Traveler In the World of Negro History for the New York Age in 1958 after leaving the Air Force. Based on his own experience after discovering the adult section of the public library while researching a school project, Tommy Traveler is a black youth's dream adventures in American history while reading of notable black heroes. This material was released in book form in 1991.

In about 1960 Feelings illustrated the NAACP's four-color comic for voter registration, The Street Where You Live. Another early piece was for Look magazine, doing portraits of children in New Orleans in 1962.

Around 1968 he met Bertram Fitzgerald and he became one of the first contributors to Fitzgerald's new line of black history comics with the umbrella title Golden Legacy. In an interview Fitzgerald recalled at this time Feelings had done a previous biography of Crispus Attucks,[5] the first casualty of the American Revolution, which was adapted into the Golden Legacy series. Crispus Attucks was one of the characters in the Tommy Traveler newspaper strip.

From the late 1960s through the 1990s, Feelings concentrated on children's books, illustrating other authors' works as well as writing his own. Notable titles included To Be a Slave (written by Julius Lester), Moja Means One: Swahili Counting Book, Jambo Means Hello: A Swahili Alphabet Book, and The Middle Passage: White Ships/Black Cargo.

Feelings died aged 70 in 2003, in Mexico, where he had been receiving treatment for cancer.

Bio courtesy of Wikipidia. Link to full bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Feelings